


Blunt Force Trauma

by dont_worry_about_it



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: Alcohol, Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Canon-Typical Violence, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, M/M, Oral Sex, Original Character Death(s), Smoking, an explosion, feelings????
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-09
Updated: 2016-09-09
Packaged: 2018-08-14 01:37:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7993849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dont_worry_about_it/pseuds/dont_worry_about_it
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are worse things than living like a dog, but it ain't exactly easy, either. For one thing, it gets a little confusing when you start to feel something a bit stronger than loyalty towards your master. Also, you get your ass kicked a lot. Dolcetto has gotten pretty used to this life, but a job gone south and a blow to the head shakes loose some feelings that he just can't push down this time. And nothing makes his head spin worse than coming to terms with where the dog ends and where the man begins.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Blunt Force Trauma

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on my FMA-blog:  
> http://homun-clueless.tumblr.com/post/149906025138/blunt-force-trauma

Time has been very strange today. What feels like lifetimes ago was really only a few hours, but the hours before that could’ve been mere seconds. But in the midst of this period of falling action, there is now not much to do but wait, and be vigilant. Dolcetto perches on a countertop in the corner farthest from the entrance, trying to keep from looking up to check the front door every other second. He distracts himself by clicking on and off his lighter, his chin resting on his palm. There is a forced atmosphere of normality amid the usual haze of smoke and dull red light. Patrons, the working girls, others of the crew, ducking in and out of the front room and the rooms beyond and occasionally out into the street; nothing is particularly out of the ordinary, but Dolcetto can smell the unease. But he has more cause to be restless than the others. Not that anyone else knows that. He goes over it in his head again.

At the beginning of the day, they had a job. Go to the train yard, meet the connection, watch over the transaction, leave better off. The details were not exactly any of his business; Dolcetto generally is supposed to be listening for problems outside of a deal, not within. Knowing that his strengths do not lie in his people skills, he had no qualms when Greed sent him away to keep watch rather than stand guard over the deal. The secluded area within the maze of waiting freight cars and crates made for a decent level of privacy, but being hidden from the outside was a two-way street. After a couple of blunders in the line of communication during past jobs, the crew had developed a very simple warning system; Dolcetto now carries a dog whistle on his patrol. Though no one’s hearing is quite as good as his own, the sound is just within Roa’s range, whose role usually entails keeping closs to Boss. If anything goes wrong on Dolcetto’s end, he can warn Roa without drawing too much attention to the deal at larger. (the flare-gun option had been a disaster)

Sound traveled fine in this convoluted arena, but smell got obstructed by the incredible excess of coal-fuel exhaust. That’s how they had gotten the jump on him. Dolcetto later found out from other accounts of the story that the buyers themselves were a plant, or had been bought out by the MPs to bait them. It didn’t matter. But all that he knew at the time was what smelled like four or five soldiers ended up being more like twenty. A special unit of some kind, too, tougher than most. Dolcetto had downed only two before being forced to run for it. In these situations, his first job is technically just to sound the warning, while keeping himself safe. But second, if possible, is to deal with unwanted parties himself, or at the very least, lead them away from where they could cause more trouble. Dolcetto elected to take the latter opinion, but it quickly became an urgent matter of maintaining the former. Dodging in and out of the aisles of empty trains, he concentrated on buying as much time as possible for the others.

What makes the next hour or so a little hazy to recall is that something then collided with the back of his head. Whether it was the butt of a gun, a baton, a weaponized iron piling, he never found out. But it was not enough to put him out of action. Downed only for a moment, he kept fighting, he kept running, even when he stopped being able to see straight. But then Dolcetto rounded another corner made by the stacks and stacks of freight crates, and suddenly was surrounded. He’s hit again, on the ground again, his sword kicked out of his hand. Slumped up against the nearest crate, Dolcetto looked up and saw the four barrels pointed at him, and knew it was the end. Even with the pain in his head, he had been sharply aware of everything in that instant. Fight had not worked, flight had not worked, and now it was over.

To his left, someone whistled. The soldiers, faceless in Dolcetto’s memory, turned to look, and the nearest to the sound suddenly had a railroad spike lodged in his chest. With their new attacker becoming the priority, the others turned away from Dolcetto, who took the opportunity to spring up and lunge for the nearest man’s throat. When fighting with just his teeth and claws, Dolcetto sometimes loses himself to the dog, something he isn’t always comfortable doing. That’s why he chooses a sword; it requires human skill to wield, and sometimes he needs that reminder of his humanity. This was not the case earlier that night. Literally fighting tooth and nail, Dolcetto became aware that the newcomer was Greed, who had utilized spare railroad spikes as his long-range weapon of choice. But upon entering the close-range of the soldiers, he made short work of killing them all, one by one. He then grabbed Dolcetto’s wrist and pulled him into a sprint back the way he came.

Because the chase was not over yet. Even in his potentially concussed state, Dolcetto’s heightened senses could now hear practically every set of heavy-booted feet crunching through the gravel towards them, every bullet whizzing over their heads. Greed made many decisions at once. Dragging Dolcetto along, he found a corner to shove him behind, and turned back to face the soldiers. Dolcetto wonders retroactively how much of this had been intentional, and how much had been dumb luck. After shouting something highly insulting, Greed dodged right across from where Dolcetto took refuge, and ducked behind a row of silver containers lying in wait by the loading dock. Greed had waited until enough of the soldiers were within range, then kicked his hiding place forward with one impossibly strong motion. The silver canister shot forward several meters, colliding with a few soldiers along the way, and then made contact with the nearest freight train. It then became clear to both Greed and Dolcetto at this point that the canister in question was in fact a gas tank. It exploded on impact.

Dolcetto didn’t really see what happened next, as the sound left him largely incapacitated. Once the shock wore off, he became aware that he was huddled on the ground and Greed was crouched over him, having protected him from the blast. When Greed let him up, they both sat in the gravel for several long stunned moments as the burning wreckage illuminated the scene. Then they both began to laugh. Giddy, uncontrollable laughter, Greed having to catch himself on Dolcetto’s shoulder to keep from keeling over. And then…

“Hey, what’s wrong with you?” a voice cuts across Dolcetto’s recollection, and he startles as though caught doing something embarrassing. Martel has come over to his secluded corner, and is looking at him with a measure of concern.

“What?” Dolcetto says, his elbow nearly slipping off his knee where it supports his head. “I-! What’re you talkin’ about?”

“You’re all red. Are you running a fever?” she places her palm on his forehead.

“Get off! I’m fine!” he snaps.

“Aww, poor thing…!” Martel simpers in her mock-motherly tone. “Is it your head that’s bothering you?”

“I said I’m fine!” he continues swatting away her efforts to diagnose him. Martel lays off and rests her hands on her hips.

“You know I can smell when your blood’s pumping faster than normal, right?”

“Bullshit.”

“Well, what’s got your heart so a-flutter, then?” she goes on, now heaving herself up to sit beside him on the countertop.

“I’m just…a little nervous is all,” Dolcetto says without looking at her.

“He’ll come back,” Martel reassures him. “After all, what’s the worst that could happen to him?” He grimaces and doesn’t answer, going back to clicking the lighter open and closed. Martel continues. “I’m just glad all of you made it back at all. No one died, right?”

“I almost died.”

“I am truly shocked to hear that,” she smirks. “Anyway, worst-case scenario, I think, is he comes back and tells us we all need to pack up right away.”

“Huh?” Dolcetto finally turns to look at her. “Why would we need to do that?”

“Well, think about it, Fido! If Burner’s people were a plant, and they were able to get the slip on us, what if they know more about our operation? What if they know where we are and try to organize a raid? That’s probably what he’s off trying to figure out. If we need to haul ass or not.”

“…Right,” he turns away again. Everything that happened after the explosion was a little fuzzy. Well, almost everything. What Greed had told him, what he said he was off to do before coming back to the den, Dolcetto could barely remember.

But this much was clear. After he got ahold of himself, after the sheer hilarity of still being alive, Dolcetto had looked up at Greed, and been struck in that instant by how incredibly beautiful he was. Laughing, lit up by the fire, leaning against his shoulder, he was the most beautiful thing Dolcetto had ever seen. It was permanently seared in his memory, that Dolcetto had then taken Greed’s head in both his hands and kissed him. Out of the overwhelming relief of being rescued, of being witness to his master once again doing the impossible, it just seemed like the obvious thing to do. Greed had been stunned for a moment before wrapping his arms around Dolcetto and pulling him into his lap. Greed tasted like molten iron, like he was breathing fire into Dolcetto’s mouth. His mind was a perfect blank in that moment, not having any concept of the world outside.

Until the outside world forced its way back in. Distantly, people could be heard shouting, drawing nearer to the fire. Soldiers, or maybe train yard attendants. Either way, people whose attention they needed to avoid. Greed had broken the kiss, looked over his shoulder at the approaching sound, laughed in a growling sort of way, and said “Hold that thought,” before springing up again and dragging Dolcetto up with him. And they ran again. They ran and ran until they reached the edge of the train yard. This was the part that Dolcetto couldn’t remember very well, the part where Greed had told him urgently to go back to the den and wait. That was the only part worth remembering. They separated, and Dolcetto hadn’t seen Greed since.

That was maybe three hours ago. On his way back, Dolcetto had run into Roa, Moran, and Vic, but no Bonn or Asby, the other two Greed had flanking him during the deal. Apparently, Dolcetto had asked Roa for the full story several times over, forgetting the details each time. They got back to the den, where Martel and Bido had not yet returned from running an intel job across town with Trench’s people. Apparently under Greed’s instructions, Roa went to pick them up and bring them back. Before he returned, Bonn and Asby made their way in, having gotten separated during the scuffle that broke out after Dolcetto had sounded the alarm. It was two hours of the waiting game in by the time Roa came back with Bido and Martel, but still no Greed. During those hours, the confusion and dizziness from the blow to the back of Dolcetto’s head faded into more benign aching. Moran, the closest thing to a doctor the crew has, gave him an ice-pack, aspirin, and pushed a couple fingers of whiskey on him for good measure. Once it was clear he had only suffered a mild concussion, Dolcetto set to distracting himself some other way. He took a shower to get rid of the sooty trainyard smell. He came back to the front, and Greed was still not back. He cleaned his sword. He came back down. Still no Greed. Having grown bored with practicing a knife-trick Martel taught him, he finally became resigned to brood on his countertop with his lighter.

This was different from the other time. Months ago, back when they were staked out in East City, Dolcetto had been smoking outside the dive they were staying at, away from a particularly loud night inside. Greed, astonishingly drunk, had come out to find him, and started clumsily kissing him, right there on the mildew-riddled couch by the dumpster. That time, Greed tasted strongly only of liquor and cigarettes. It wasn’t entirely different from tonight, but Dolcetto recalls a distinct sense of panic that he definitely hadn’t felt earlier in the train yard. That night under the flickering porch-light in the dive’s back alley, Greed pushed Dolcetto on his back and pulled his shoulders and arms out of his gi, and was making to untie his belt when he stopped just as suddenly. 

“…Is this okay?” Greed had asked, surprisingly focused for someone so inebriated. “I mean, are you okay with this?” Dolcetto was unable to meet his gaze, feeling frozen in place.

“I…,” he struggled to find his voice, every nerve in his body screaming at him. “…I’ll do whatever you want, boss.” And he meant it. He would do anything for his master, that’s just how it is. But apparently, this was the wrong answer. Greed frowned and sat up from where he had Dolcetto pinned.

“Nah, forget it,” Greed said with a dismissive wake of his hand. “That ain’t the same.” He made to leave. Dolcetto, panicking, only then had been able to move from his reclined position.

“I..! I’m sorry!” he managed to say. “I can…! I just-,”

“Nah nah nah, don’t do that,” Greed shook a finger at him, or at least in his general direction. His balance was a little off. “Don’t be, I shouldn’t…I shouldn’t have put you on the spot like that. Sorry.” After finding his footing again, he took a flask out of his jacket and took a swig, then offered it to Dolcetto.

“Here, if you get drunk now, maybe you’ll black out and forget it even happened!” he had offered brightly, his solemn demeanor apparently having passed. Dolcetto sat up, unsure of what to say. So he took the flask and drank too. He handed it back, and Greed ruffled Dolcetto’s hair on his unsteady way back to the dive’s back door.

“Atta boy,” he had said fondly. “Forget about it, it’s fine.” And Greed went back inside, leaving Dolcetto feeling incredibly stupid. Stupid, confused, relieved, and another feeling he couldn’t put his finger on. The feeling you get when you realize a door has been opened to you. But that was months ago. Dolcetto never went through that door. He had decided he never would. For one thing, he told himself over and over again that he wasn’t that kind of guy. He even went so far as to get a girlfriend to further distance himself from the idea. And it wasn’t as though he didn’t like the girl. But he had to leave her behind in East City, and found himself not really mourning the loss too greatly. For another thing, even if he did feel that way about Greed, what good would it do? Greed’s got so many other people, girls and boys alike, people who could probably do things for him that Dolcetto couldn’t. That just wasn’t his job. It wasn’t his arena. 

These are thoughts that he revisits now. Feelings that he had pushed down since then are now back in full-force, trying desperately to process what had happened. There’s really no point in pretending now that he doesn’t feel some kind of way. He could argue that he wasn’t thinking straight, the blow to his head had mixed him up, the heat of the moment had gotten to him. Maybe he could stretch it so far as to say the relief of being saved was so great, Greed could’ve been anyone in that moment. He could easily tell Greed that, and he knows that Greed would understand. It would be code, really, because no, Greed couldn’t have been anyone. Dolcetto knows that if anyone else had been there in that moment, it would’ve been entirely different. Dolcetto had kissed Greed, and had done it completely intentionally. And now, even in a state of anxiety over what to do next, Dolcetto realizes he doesn’t regret it. Even if it could’ve spared him this agony and deliberation right now, he knows he would’ve done it again. But the question of whether he really will do it again is another matter entirely.

“Want some fresh ice?” Martel asks after a lengthy silence.

“No thanks.” Martel scoffs.

“What is up with you? You’re acting weird! Maybe they knocked something loose in there!” Dolcetto closes the lighter with a snap.

“It’s been a long day, alright, Martel?!” he says, louder than he meant to. “Lay off, for fuck’s sake!”

“Ooooh, I get it,” Martel says slyly. Dolcetto’s heart drops. She’s about to do that thing, isn’t she? He avoids her eye, and she leans forward to continue reading his face with a smirk. “Is this about Boss?”

“I…just wanna know he’s okay, is all!” Dolcetto says, trying with great difficulty not to flush furiously.

“He’s Greed, of course he’s okay! You’re just worried about what happens when he comes back.” Why does she do that? Where in the snake genome is mind-reading spelled out? Martel grins an evil grin. “Let me guess, he yelled at you.”

“Huh?”

“For having to come back to rescue you. Blowing up the train yard for you, he’s bound to be a little disappointed…!” Dolcetto tries very hard not to look relieved. For once, she got it wrong. But he continues grimacing as though caught in the truth.

“That’s none of your business.”

“Don’t worry. It’s not like you’ve never let him down before.”

“What-? Shut up!”

He hadn’t even thought about that. She’s right, he failed to look after himself, and now Greed is probably off cleaning up the extra mess he had made to save his stupid ass. Exactly what he needed, another layer of worry. Having slipped in his watch, Dolcetto jumps when the door at the far end of the bar bangs open.

“GOOD NEWS, ASSHOLES! WE STILL GOT PAID!” Greed enters loudly and triumphantly. Dolcetto springs to his feet and at attention, his heart having jumped into his throat.

“God, it’s not like he’s going to beat you with a newspaper, mutt,” Martel smirks. She leaves his side to join to slow rush of movement that swamps Greed as he comes in. First, some of the girls come forward and throw themselves on him, crying about how worried they were. He makes his rounds with them, then the closest of his men that come forward to ask him urgently where he’d been, what had happened, was everything cleared up. He seems immensely pleased with himself, an energy that he passes on to everyone in the bar. What was a pressing feeling of worry quickly becomes an atmosphere of near-celebration.

“You okay, Dolcetto?” Greed yells cheerily over the heads of the women who now flank him and corral him across the threshold. Dolcetto, having not moved far from his original spot, nods silently. Greed beams and gives him the thumbs up, then turns back to his throng. Dolcetto practically feels his heart hit the bottom of his stomach with a thud. Was that it? Surely that wasn’t it! Was he going to pretend it didn’t happen, like last time? Does he think that’s what Dolcetto wants? Is that what Dolcetto wants? No, he decides, it’s not. He’s going to need some closure, some kind of attention. Any kind of attention. That’s at least what he wants desperately right now, amid the intense feeling of being ignored.

“You’re a dog,” a voice in the back of his head reminds him. “Of course you want his attention. Dogs love their masters, but not like that. Don’t go confusing those kinds of love.”

“But I’m a man, too,” he fights the voice back. “I can feel any way a man feels. No one said I can’t feel both.”

He had long since gotten over any feelings of disgust towards men being intimate with each other. It is something that is frowned on in Amestris, so obviously the many outcasts who flock to Greed’s side end up having preferences that are somehow unacceptable back in the world up above. Greed himself makes no secret of his taste for both men and women. So when maybe a year or so ago, the voice would have told him, “if you were a real man, you wouldn’t feel this way,” Dolcetto doesn’t think that way anymore. He just didn’t expect to be facing that actual attraction himself.

“Yo, anyone home?” Greed comes to Dolcetto’s side and waves a hand in front of his face. Having turned away from the buzz to think more, Dolcetto hadn’t noticed the approach.

“Sorry, boss!” Dolcetto says abruptly. Greed smiles and jovially thumps him on the back.

“You look down! Bummed you’re still stuck with me?” he says, now resting his arm on Dolcetto’s shoulder. Dolcetto forces a casual response.

“Nah. Job-hunting’s a pain in the ass,” he says with as much edge as he can muster. He returns the hearty thump on his master’s back. “Glad you’re back.” Greed laughs and grips Dolcetto’s shoulder in a side-embrace.

“Really, Dol, I owe you a drink,” he chatters, now using his grip to wheel Dolcetto away from the corner and towards the bar. “That would’ve gone a lot worse if you hadn’t signaled Roa.”

“Would’ve been better if you didn’t have to set the train yard on fire coming back for me, though,” Dolcetto grimaces. 

“You kidding? That was the best part!” Greed laughs. Something occurs to him, and he drums his fingers on Dolcetto’s shoulder in deliberation before changing course. “Tell you what, we can drink later, I need to talk to you first.” He re-directs them towards the door that leads to the back rooms and the stairs to the floor above. Dolcetto hopes Greed can’t hear his heart beating like a drum. 

“Sure thing, boss,” he says levelly. Martel catches his eye as he passes and gives him a sympathetic look. Dolcetto just scowls and flips her off.

“Roa said you nearly got your skull cracked open,” Greed goes on conversationally, leading the way. “Was that before or after I got to you?”

“Before.” They pass through the door and into the dimly lit threshold beyond. Nearest the door is the staircase, and a dingy hallway runs in either direction flanking it. People pass in and out of other doors to other hallways, up and down the stairs, but in the space just a few paces from the reach of the door where Greed stops, there is a degree of privacy.

“Aaah, that explains it,” Greed says knowingly, clapping his shoulder.

“Explains what?”

“Well, no offense, Dol, but it didn’t really seem like you to get cornered like that!” he teases.

“Yes, sir. I got caught off my guard, it won’t happen again,” Dolcetto says somewhat mechanically.

“Oh, that’s bullshit, of course it’ll happen again! Don’t sweat it, though, as long as it don’t kill you, it’s no big deal.” 

“Easy for you to say. You can walk away from shit that would leave the rest of us dead.”

“You got me there!” Greed smirks at Dolcetto’s divergence from the sometimes soldier-like etiquette he tends to fall into. “Still. You’re tougher than most.”

“Yeah, yeah. So what were you off doing?” Dolcetto asks, changing the subject. “Are we in the clear?”

“Hm? Oh, right, that,” Greed says, distractedly rubbing the back of his head and beginning to pace the small length of the landing in front of Dolcetto. “Nah, just chasing down some stragglers, people who didn’t need to be running around talkin’ about this. And just some other loose ends, tied ‘em up best I could.”

“So we don’t need to be thinking about relocating?”

“Ah, well, we’re gonna need to keep our ear to the ground on that one,” Greed admits, slowly turning the length of his path and closing the distance between them. “In fact, I’m probably gonna send you down to the MP station tomorrow, see if you can’t overhear anything about our case.”

“Right, but you sure you don’t want that done right now?” Dolcetto says.

“Nah, things might get a little crazy tomorrow, but I think we’re safe for the night. So…,” Greed stops his pacing, having closed in on Dolcetto. He lowers his voice. “…I’d like to make it a good night.” Dolcetto feels his throat dry up. He backs up and finds he is flattened against the wall. Inches from him, Greed raises a hand and lifts Dolcetto’s chin with one finger. He tips Dolcetto’s face left and right, as though looking him over.

“Where’d you get hit?” he says after a few heavy seconds of silence. Slowly, Dolcetto raises his right hand and takes Greed’s wrist. Turning his head, he guides Greed’s hand to the base of his neck where he feels his fingers lightly run through his hair. Dolcetto removes his own hand, but it comes to rest on Greed’s outstretched lower arm.

“Does that hurt when I touch it?” Greed says gently. Dolcetto doesn’t look at him.

“Not so much, no.” They’re chest-to-chest now, Dolcetto’s back firmly pressed against the wall. Greed takes Dolcetto’s head with his other hand where he continues running his fingers through his hair. 

“That’s my boy,” Greed says. He bows Dolcetto’s head, who is grateful to not have to meet his eye yet, and gently kisses his forehead. It lingers there, long and deliberate and sincere. He tilts Dolcetto’s face up and then kisses him between the eyebrows. His lips move to Dolcetto’s temple, which he keeps kissing as though each place were part of some routine inspection. Greed angles Dolcetto’s face to now get at the length of his cheekbone. His jawline, his ear, then back to his cheek, now with a kind of urgency. More rapidly, with something like a growl in the back of his throat. The build-up is killing him, so the next time Greed’s path passes near his chin, Dolcetto ends up turning abruptly to catch Greed’s mouth with his own. It’s the moment that all the questions momentarily leave Dolcetto. The path ahead, what he really felt; in the end, it didn’t really matter. What seems to matter most in that moment is that Greed keep kissing him. 

Greed moves hungrily. His grip on Dolcetto’s head tightens as he presses harder against him. Greed notes with a little laugh that yes, the inside of Dolcetto’s mouth does feel softer than most people’s. It had something to do with breeding hunting dogs to not damage a catch after retrieving it. Hopefully nobody had kissing in mind when they made that selective breeding choice, but Greed would have thanked them nonetheless. It was a good choice. Dolcetto makes a noise into Greed’s mouth, and Greed breaks.

“Got something to say?” he pants, leaning his forehead against Dolcetto’s. 

“I…It’s just,” Dolcetto stutters. “…Have you been waiting on me?” Greed smirks, and leans down to kiss Dolcetto’s jawline before answering.

“I figured you might come around, yeah,” he purrs once getting close to his ear. Dolcetto lays his hands tentatively on both of Greed’s biceps.

“Well…uh…sorry I kept you waiting.” That’s about all the affirmation he needs. With renewed vigor, Greed goes back to Dolcetto’s mouth and resumes kissing him, his hands leaving his head and traveling down his backside. Dolcetto throws his arms over Greed’s shoulders, and has to keep from yelping in surprise when Greed grips both his ass cheeks to pull him closer. The lightheadedness returns, though this time likely because of all the blood rushing to his erection now pressed firmly against Greed’s.

“Come upstairs with me?” Greed breaks again, eager to get this ironed out. “I’m moving a little fast, so it’s up to you, really.”

“…Yeah, can we?” Dolcetto says after mentally re-writing an appropriate response about five times in the span of five seconds. “I feel like Martel or someone is gonna come busting through this door any second, ya know? She’s got enough ammo as it is.”

“Don’t worry about her,” Greed gives him a swift pat before letting go and taking his wrist instead, leading him up the stairs. The apartment complex on top of Genie’s, so named for the landlady and madam, is mostly home to rooms she lets out to the barstaff and the working girls. With a little convincing, Greed had secured an arrangement to get the rest of the previously uninhabitable rooms opened up for him and his people. It was just a matter of doing the renovation for her. Plus, by letting Greed make his center of operations in her bar, Genie had the added benefit of security for her and her girls. Everyone’s round-the-clock job is to look out for patrons causing any trouble for them, as per Greed and Genie’s agreement. And maybe not per the agreement, Greed has the biggest room, having knocked down a wall and combined two rooms and a bathroom on the third floor, quite without asking. Greed’s not even sure Genie knows.

Dolcetto has never been in Greed’s room. He has seen glimpses of it before, when occasionally coming up to wake him or tell him that he’s needed downstairs, but still doesn’t know exactly what to expect. It’s an absolute mess. The floor is barely visible through the immense heaps of assorted junk piled in every conceivable space. A four-poster with red curtains and an absurd number of pillows nests itself against the far wall. An entire chandelier that seems to have been repurposed as a coat rack takes up a large portion of the floor to the right of the bed, where Greed now tosses his current jacket. 

“Holy shit, Greed!” Dolcetto can’t help but blurt out upon entering the threshold. Nearly tripping over what appears to be an antique spear lying on the ground, he looks from the bed, then to the door. Back at the bed, he holds up his hands to approximate its width, then turns back to compare it to the doorway. “…How did you…?”

“Fit the bed in?” Greed finishes the sentence for him. Leaving Dolcetto near the doorway, he picks his way to the bed, then steps onto it as a shortcut to get to the bathroom door on the far left. “Piece by piece. Had Moran assemble it for me.”

“Boss, if we have to leave, what are you gonna do with all this shit?” Dolcetto says, peering into a crate on top of a stack at his eye level.

“I dunno. Find a warehouse, I guess,” Greed calls from beyond the bathroom door. Dolcetto can hear water running. “And don’t call it shit. It’s all very important.”

“This is important?” Greed leans into view to see Dolcetto presenting a poorly taxidermied squirrel wearing a tiny top hat.

“Hey, that’s Roger. Put him down,” he says sternly. “And get on the bed while you’re at it.”

“Don’t blame me if I break my neck on the way over,” Dolcetto grumbles, carefully planning his approach across the traitorous landscape.

“Oh, by the way, when was the last time you took a shit?” Greed calls over his shoulder, and Dolcetto loses his footing. Greed comes out of the bathroom with a glass of water and a towel slung over his shoulder, and waits patiently for Dolcetto to recover.

“What?” Dolcetto finally manages after pulling himself back up using the bed.

“Like, you’ve definitely shit today, right?” Greed goes on conversationally. “Cuz if not, now’s the time.” He carefully makes his way around the mountain of boxes in his path to step back up onto the bed and stand over Dolcetto.

“What are you talking about?!”

“Think about it, genius,” Greed drops the towel over Dolcetto’s head before hopping off the bed to set the glass of water down on the bedside table. “Aw, whatever. I guess we’ll find out soon enough. Now get up here.”

Greed reaches down and hoists Dolcetto up by the lapels of his gi, and pushes him down onto his back in the same motion. He straddles him as they begin to kiss again, sliding one hand across Dolcetto’s chest and along his neck. Dolcetto is unsure what to do with his own hands as Greed’s reach down to untie the belt that keeps his gi folded across his chest. They break when Greed takes his shoulders to lift him up just enough to shake him out of the sleeves. Rather then pushing him back down again, Greed keeps him in a sitting position on the side of the bed to get the next layer of clothes off. Dolcetto isn’t sure when it happened, but Greed’s own skin-tight undershirt seems to have melted away and left his chest bare. So was it not really a shirt to begin with at all? Homunculi are weird, Dolcetto thinks idly, though he is not exactly one to talk.

This is a little easier, since he can now lean back on his hands while Greed sits on his lap and kisses his neck. Easier to keep from collapsing as Greed‘s hips grind slowly against his own, continuing to exacerbate his dizziness. Hands eventually become forearms, when Dolcetto finds himself slowly reclining with Greed following him down. Lifting his hips, Greed puts out one hand to support himself to the left of Dolcetto’s reclined arm, and lets the other run down the length of his chest, past his navel, past the hem of his pants. Dolcetto involuntarily stiffens when Greed’s hand starts rubbing his erection through the seat of his pants, letting out a constrained gasp. Greed grins and lifts his head to face Dolcetto, who turns away bashfully.

“Look at you, blushing like a virgin,” Greed regards Dolcetto’s reaction with amusement. 

“…I’m not a virgin,” Dolcetto protests, trying not to react as Greed licks the length of his cheekbone and bits gently at his earlobe.

“Might as well be,” he whispers in his ear.

“Shut up!” Dolcetto hears himself snapping. “Don’t treat me like just another one of your air-headed hussies!” 

“Rude,” Greed travels down his neck, craning so as to move on to kissing Dolcetto’s shoulder and collarbone. “Keep up that kind of talk and I might just put a muzzle on you.” The threat raises goosebumps up Dolcetto’s arms. He feels like he’s running a fever, and everywhere Greed’s tongue touches his skin seems to burn on impact. He doesn’t say anything, but focuses on keeping his breathing steady. Greed smiles to himself and sits up, resting a hand on the base of Dolcetto’s neck and bringing their mouths together again.

“You can be sour all you want, puppy-boy, but let’s get one thing clear,” Greed breaks to say levelly, inches from Dolcetto’s mouth. “This?” He gives Dolcetto’s cock a slightly harder squeeze, making him inhale sharply. “…This is mine.”

Relinquishing his grip, Greed stands. Beside the bed, he kicks aside the closest clutter (a spittoon filled with nails and a duffle bag that makes a wheezing noise when moved) so that he can get to his knees between Dolcetto’s overhanging legs. He leans forward to pull Dolcetto closer to the edge of the bed, wrapping his arms around his back and bringing his mouth to kiss his chest. Dolcetto reclines further as Greed progresses down the length of his stomach. He lingers on a long, spindly scar that spreads like a city map just to the right of Dolcetto’s navel.

“Where’s this from?” he looks up at the incredibly flustered Dolcetto, politely curious. He rearranges his arms to rest on either side of Dolcetto’s thighs, bringing one hand up to gently trace the farthest-reaching stretch of the scar.

“That’s…that’s from before the labs,” Dolcetto finds his voice again. The lab scars are not much of a secret: they are small and centralized on his arms and the base of his neck, where needles and IVs frequently stayed for days. And on his wrists and ankles, from where the restraining straps had rubbed his skin raw, over and over. “Got caught under a house being blown apart. Stabbed by a broken cross-beam. There were…a lot of splinters.”

“That’s how they found you?” Dolcetto nods. Greed’s expression shifts from sympathetic to inexcusably wicked. “So you have had wood in you before!”

“OH MY GOD,” Dolcetto bursts out, planting his palm on Greed’s face and pushing him away. Greed just laughs and maintains his grip on Dolcetto’s legs to keep from being moved too far away from his target.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! Couldn’t help it!” he cackles. Dolcetto pulls his hand back to cover his own face in disgust, and Greed laughs more gently before leaning back in to place a long enduring kiss on the center of the scar. “It’s a pretty impressive scar.” His fingers work their way into the hem of Dolcetto’s pants, urging them past his hips as he works his way further down Dolcetto’s abdomen, following the line of dark hair.

“And! I’d rather not get any more!” Dolcetto says quite suddenly when Greed’s mouth finally makes contact with the seat of his pants. “Are you sure about this? With those teeth?!” Greed looks up from his steady efforts to pull Dolcetto’s pants off.

“Relax! I’ve done this a thousand times!” he says with a nonchalant wave of his hand. “Now help me out and lift your ass for a sec.” A thousand times, Dolcetto thinks with an unexpected pang of jealousy. Not so special after all, then. But there soon isn’t much room to think about the ones before him when Greed finally gets both his trousers and his shorts past his knees, freeing his erection. Greed makes a particular point of holding off on the initializing touch. He kisses Dolcetto everywhere but the obvious; the base of his shaft, his inner thighs, his hips. It’s a singular relief when Greed’s lips finally softly kiss the head as he wraps his hand around the base to better guide it into his mouth. He licks the length of Dolcetto’s cock in one agonizingly long motion before slowly gliding the tip of his tongue over the head and fully taking it into his mouth.

“Aw, fuck…,” Dolcetto finds himself moaning once Greed begins to establish a rhythm of bobbing his head up and down over Dolcetto’s hips. He isn’t sure if he’s supposed to be holding out on cumming or not. Would it be better to cum more quickly, so that Greed can move onto…onto whatever it is that he’s planning? Dolcetto doesn’t know much about anal, but he’s fairly certain he doesn’t need his dick much for it. Unless, of course, Greed asks him to return the favor? That seems, out of everything, maybe just a bit too far out of his comfort zone. Whatever the case, Dolcetto knows at this rate, he won’t be able to hold off for long. Greed wasn’t wrong; he clearly has done this before. Sliding his hand up and down Dolcetto’s length in time with his mouth, Greed knows exactly where to suck harder and where to work his tongue. 

And then he moves deeper. Removing his hand, Greed easily fits the entire length of Dolcetto’s dick into the back of his mouth. His fingers wet with precum and saliva, his hand slips behind Dolcetto’s balls and along his taint. Dolcetto can’t help but whimper at the sensation as Greed begins fingering his hole in slow, circular motions. He finds he can’t quite support himself on his elbows anymore and slumps onto his back, inadvertently arching as Greed continues to mercilessly suck him off. Dolcetto fits his fingers into Greed’s hair and feels his hips pushing up slightly to get more out of every movement Greed makes.

“Can I…? Can I cum?” Dolcetto gasps. “Goddammit, I wanna cum…!” 

“That’s the idea,” Greed comes up long enough to say before going down again. As if to exaggerate the feeling, he presses harder against Dolcetto’s anus, though not yet entering it. It’s the beginning of a sensation Dolcetto has never felt; an entirely different kind of buzz. It was strange to be there on the cusp of one kind of climax while simultaneously being wound up for another. Greed hits a particularly sweet spot at the base of Dolcetto’s head and he just can’t help it. It feels like riding the crest of a wave that’s dying to come violently crashing down. He forgets himself at the top of the wave. Tightening his grip on his hair, Dolcetto forces Greed’s head back down with a gasp and erupts in the back of his throat. It takes a couple thrusts to empty the entirety of his load, and Greed swallows it all. He abruptly becomes sensitive as the after-shocks of the orgasm leave him, and he pulls Greed’s head back up just as suddenly. Eyes shut, panting, Dolcetto remains on his back, lifting his hand to rest on his dizzy forehead. And then his eyes spring back open again at an entirely new assault.

Greed has pulled Dolcetto’s hips even farther off the bed, ducking under the pants that still hang at his ankles. He rests Dolcetto’s legs on his shoulders and now brings his mouth below Dolcetto’s still-throbbing penis to where his fingers had been working moments before. Amid the entirely foreign sensation of having his asshole licked, Dolcetto becomes momentarily grateful he had taken the time to shower earlier that night. Greed’s tongue works in long, deliberate circles along the edge of Dolcetto’s muscles, then pressing into the very center. It feels wet and warm to Dolcetto, reawakening his own drive much sooner than he had imagined. 

“Oh, shit!” Dolcetto gasps as Greed switches from flicking his tongue into his hole to sucking it hard with the fullness of his mouth, then breaking the suction with a wet kind of pop.

“Not so much,” Greed says lightly once coming up for air. “Answers my question, I guess. Sit tight for a sec, and get your shoes off.” He lifts Dolcetto’s legs off his shoulders and sits up from his kneeling position to reach over to the creaky bedside table where the water glass sits. After taking a long gulp and wiping his mouth off on his forearm, Greed sets to searching through the drawers of the table for something. Dolcetto sits up to unbuckle his shoes and pull his pants fully off his legs, and watches Greed silently. He notices that Greed at some point must have taken off his own shoes and undone the front of his pants. He feels another hair-raising chill up and down his body upon seeing Greed’s own cock hanging over the top of his unbuttoned pants. He must’ve been jerking himself off at some point when he had a hand free.

“Yeah, alright, here we go,” Greed says triumphantly, pushing past what sounds like several glass bottles and rattling tins to uncover a cylindrical screw-on topped bottle. “We’re gonna need this, you’re tighter than a clam with a secret.”

“Is that…?”

“It’s for…surgeries, I think?” Greed consults the bottle, standing up and shaking his pants down to his ankles in the process. “I break into state hospitals every now and again for this stuff, works better than the shit they sell on the streets. That stuff’ll give you infections, believe me. I found out the hard way. And speakin’ of hard…,” Greed pushes Dolcetto onto his back before he can say anything along the lines of ‘too much information, pal.’ He situates himself between Dolcetto’s legs again, this time fully on the bed with him, reminding them both of their height difference. The material he scoops out of the bottle has a consistency between petroleum jelly and vegetable oil, the color of white cream. Having had a little time to catch his breath and work on getting his second wind, Dolcetto gasps again and clenches the sheets in his fists when Greed’s fingers return to between his ass cheeks, this time smearing the lube generously over his parameter and then just as slowly pressing in.

“Is that good?” Greed purrs over Dolcetto, pushing his pointer finger deeper into him. “That feel okay?” Dolcetto can’t seem to make a reply. He just nods instead. Feeling his muscles dilate ever so slightly, Greed begins to diversify the movements of his finger. He pushes in and out, then out completely, then back in with the addition of another finger. The two of them gently work at Dolcetto’s walls, pressing outward slowly and methodically in a clockwise circle. With his other hand, he reaches down and caresses the length of Dolcetto’s chest, stopping to press and pinch at his nipples. He takes his time; getting Dolcetto used to the sensation can’t be rushed. But it’s growing increasingly difficult for him. He returns his free hand to the lube bottle and this time applies it to himself, wetting the length of his own aching erection.

“God, I want in you,” he hisses, increasing the speed at which he jerks himself and pushes into Dolcetto. “Fuck, I want in that tight little asshole of yours!” He pulls his fingers out and roughly re-arranges Dolcetto’s hips to bring them towards his own. After applying yet more lube, he fits his cock into Dolcetto’s slippery crack and begins sliding it in between his cheeks. He clamps down on Dolcetto’s thighs as he continues to thrust against him.

“Ah! Greed!” Dolcetto moans, his back arched, his whole body flushed. “I…! I…!”

“You think you’re ready? Is that it, puppy?” Greed says with no small measure of aggression. “You want my cock inside you, big boy?” He doesn’t wait for an answer. He stops his grinding and removes his hand from Dolcetto’s thigh, leaving behind white fingerprints from where he had been gripping him so tightly. Supporting Dolcetto’s raised hips with his other hand, Greed directs the tip of his penis to begin pressing into him. He stops, applies more of the jelly roughly with his fingers directly into his hole before resuming the first endeavor of insertion. “You gotta relax for me. Can you do that?”

“Yes, sir…,” Dolcetto pants with her brow furrowed and his eyes squeezed shut at the sensation. “Yes sir, I’m trying…!”

“Good boy…,” Greed says heavily, pushing a little harder. “Oh, fuck, that’s a good boy…That’s it…” His head is fully submerged and it takes all the self-control he has not to thrust in as deep as he can right then and there. He moves slowly, painstakingly slowly, what feels like hours to press all the way in. He tells Dolcetto to breath, to relax, he runs his hands over his chest and nipples again, then down to his newly-returned erection. And for all the precaution, Dolcetto can’t help but acknowledge that it hurts more than he had expected. But god, it’s such a good hurt. It’s a pain that just gets mixed up with the good feeling, and they lend themselves to each other. Everything he feels right now, it’s doesn’t matter what, contributes to this electrifying, smoldering sensation building up in him.

“Fuck, you’re so tight, baby,” Greed moans, pausing with his balls pressed right up against Dolcetto’s ass. “Are you okay? Can I go faster?”

“…Yeah, I’m good,” Dolcetto manages, blushing profusely at the evil grin that spreads across his master’s face. Letting his knees support Dolcetto’s hips, Greed crouches down to kiss at Dolcetto’s neck hungrily.

“I know you are,” he croons as he begins to slowly push his hips back and forth into Dolcetto. “You’re such a good dog, Dolcetto…” Previously belaboring under the impression that he could keep himself fairly quiet, Dolcetto claps a hand over his mouth to stifle the moans that he can’t keep from coming out as Greed thrusts into him. But Greed grabs his wrist and pulls the hand away.

“Ah-ah!” Greed scolds, pinning Dolcetto’s arm beside him. “I wanna hear you, understand? No holding back, I wanna hear you moan.” He proceeds to kiss him forcibly, cramming his tongue down into the back of his throat. Dolcetto has no choice but to moan into his mouth, gripping at the back of Greed’s head with his free hand. Aside from the filling, bursting sensation inside of him, Dolcetto also becomes aware of the way his penis gets stimulated each time Greed’s lower abdomen brushes against him. He can feel the waves rising again, in the form of a storm whose strength he was nowhere near strong enough to resist. 

“Does that feel good? You fuckin’ like that?” Greed practically yells in his ear. 

“I…! It feels…!” Dolcetto tries amid gasping for air. He clenches his teeth shut after a particularly hard thrust.

“You need to bite onto something?” Greed says with a measure of concern. He lowers his shoulders to Dolcetto’s level, wrapping his arms over Dolcetto’s head to bury his face near his neck. “Bite my neck if you need to.” With his elbows above Dolcetto’s shoulders, he brings both his lower and upper body together to better leverage the next drive in. Dolcetto does as he is told, clinging to Greed’s sculpted back and setting his teeth into his straining shoulder muscles. He makes an effort not to bite down too tightly, but that effort proves useless as Greed continues to dig faster and harder into him. He can feel Greed’s hot breath near his ear, he can smell the sweat and the semen and the natural essence of pheromones keenly, feeling almost drunk off of them. He feels like he’s melting, ambient heat coming off Greed and into him like an iron forge, like he’s the raw ore being crushed and squeezed and pressed into a new shape.  
He tastes blood, and then a sharp shock to his tongue causes him to release his grip suddenly. 

“Ah! I’m sorry!” he says frantically, realizing he had broken Greed’s skin. Greed stops moving, the red light dancing out of the healing bite-mark on his shoulder illuminating his shining face. He smiles.

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Greed says dismissively. “I told you to, after all.” He regards Dolcetto’s still-panicked expression with amusement before sitting up and swatting Dolcetto’s ass cheerfully. “Tell you what, let’s try something different.” He pulls out, and makes short work of rearranging Dolcetto as if he were a weightless ragdoll. He puts Dolcetto on his hands and knees, now positioning himself behind him. 

“Bite this if you need to,” Greed hoists the nearest pillow over to where Dolcetto rests his elbows. Reaching for the lube bottle again, he wets both Dolcetto and himself before taking his hips and bringing them back towards his own. “See, maybe doggy-style will come a little more natural to you, huh?”

“Oh, ha ha,” Dolcetto says sarcastically, and might have followed up with something more scathing if the sensation of being entered again didn’t cut him short. Greed doesn’t take long to work back up to his previous speed, this time having to use fewer muscles to get to the same result. Sensing that Dolcetto may not need him to hold out for all that much longer, Greed lets himself get further along his own ride up. But he keeps from going too far, sure that he can get Dolcetto off at least one more time. Still, it grows more and more difficult to control himself. Quite without thinking, Greed takes hold of Dolcetto’s head (careful to avoid where he had been hit, however) and forces it onto the bed where he holds it down unyieldingly.

“You’re mine,” Greed pants. “Oh fuck, you’re all mine…!” The feeling of Greed’s fingers in his hair is uniquely stimulating; Dolcetto can feel his wave growing higher. Greed’s cock has been hitting a place way in the back of him that is driving him wild, it’s unlike anything he’s ever felt before. Being so much taller than him, Greed has no trouble bending right over and bringing his mouth to bite and suck urgently at Dolcetto’s neck. Dolcetto is reminded of this exact same position from earlier in the night; the way Greed had crouched over him to protect him from the exploding gas canister. They are so close, he can feel Greed’s heart hammering against his back. 

“Say it back to me,” Greed commands in his ear. “Tell me you’re mine.”

“I’m yours…!” Dolcetto says weakly, pressing against every point of contact with Greed. “I’m…oh fuck, I’m gonna cum again…!”

“Yeah?” Greed snarls. Supporting himself with one arm, he reaches down to wrap around Dolcetto’s waist and grip his stiff cock. “Yeah, you gonna cum for me, puppy-boy?” He resolves there’s no use holding off now. If he takes any significant amount of time to finish after Dolcetto, it’d be unlikely either of them could get off again. Dolcetto’s clearly nearing his exhaustion threshold. Maybe next time, he could see how much longer they could last. But for now, there’s no point. His own cock feels like it could burst at any moment inside Dolcetto’s almost painfully-tight walls. He loses the last remnants of control and pounds into Dolcetto in wet, slapping thrusts, gripping his dick and biting his neck with hungry abandon. 

“Does that feel good, you gonna cum again?” Greed says urgently. “Cuz I’m gonna cum in you, baby-boy. Would you like that? Huh? You want me to fill you up?”

“Yes!”

“You want me to fill you up with my cum?!”

“Yes, Greed!” Dolcetto cries out, his whole body spasming as he finally reaches the top again. They both barely hear each other orgasm at nearly the same time, but they both feel the other. It comes out differently, almost explosively, catching in Greed’s hand with much of it slipping through the cracks. Greed immediately relinquishes his grip and slaps his wet hand onto Dolcetto’s waist, pulling him in as hard as he can into his last achingly good thrusts. All and all, it’s a mess; Greed’s cum leaking out along the parameter and Dolcetto’s spread anywhere from where Greed’s hand had moved to on the sheets below him. They both feel frozen in time for a moment, coming down from the high and catching their breath. Dolcetto flinches a little as Greed slowly removes himself, then shakily falls to his side once Greed is all the way out. 

He lies there, panting, with his eyes shut. He can feel the creak of the bed as Greed gets up to do something, but he doesn’t bother to open his eyes to find out what. After hearing Greed take several long gulps from the water glass, Dolcetto feels a hand grab his ankle and lift up his leg, at which point he warrants moving again. 

“Hey, what’re you doing?” he says irritably, like someone shaken out of a nap. Greed freezes, standing by the bed with Dolcetto’s leg in one hand and the towel in the other.

“I was just cleaning up a little.”

“I’m not a baby, I can clean myself!” Dolcetto sits up and snatches the towel from Greed, who backs away with his hands raised non-confrontationally. 

“Okay…!” he says shortly, trying not to laugh at the return of Dolcetto’s attitude. Instead, he leaves him be, and picks his way back to the bathroom to wash himself up. Upon sitting up suddenly, Dolcetto immediately regrets it. He feels shaky and dizzy; wholly exhausted. He drains the rest of the glass and does his best to wipe himself and the sheets down. Folding the towel in half so that only the clean side remains exposed, he sets it under himself and collapses again on his back. His whole body aches. His ass hurts a little, but it doesn’t bother him. He stares up at the canopy and listens to water running in the bathroom, and nearly falls asleep. He’s shaken by the smell of a cigarette burning and the change in the light behind his eyelids as Greed turns the lights off.

“Hey…does the towel need to go anywhere?” Dolcetto says quietly, turning on his side to look at Greed coming back to the bed.

“Nah, leave it. We can clean up more tomorrow,” Greed sits heavily on the bed beside him and offers out a box of cigarettes. “Want one?”

“I don’t like those.”

“Oh right. You’re a loose-leaf snob,” Greed chuckles. By the small red light of his cigarette, and the patches of light from the blinded window by the bathroom, Dolcetto can make out Greed sitting up to reach for the covers that had been crumbled up at the foot of the bed, and pull it back up. “You feeling okay?”

“Yeah.” It’s not a lie. Despite feeling a little weird, it is the most relaxed he has felt in a long time. 

“I didn’t break you or anything?”

“I’m fine,” Dolcetto says stubbornly. “It would take more than that to break me.”

“Oh yeah?” Greed pulls the covers up past his waist and reclined with his hand behind his head. “That was nothin’, pal. C’mere.” He extends his left arm to beckon Dolcetto to come lie by his side. 

“Is that…? Is that not usually how it goes?” Dolcetto asks after awkwardly shifting over to fold into Greed’s reach, pulling the towel along to stay under him. He rests his head on Greed’s shoulder and lays his arm across his chest, And Greed bends his outstretched arm around Dolcetto’s back in kind.

“I can usually go a lot longer,” Greed clarifies, sounding very full of himself, “but I didn’t wanna overdo it.”

“…Oh.” Dolcetto says quietly. He remembers the ‘thousand times’ Greed had mentioned. How stupid, he thinks, to come this far and already find something new to get bent out of shape about. Greed seems to sense something is bothering him.

“You did great, by the way,” he says, and ruffles Dolcetto’s hair affectionately. “A real trooper, you are.”

“…Thanks. Not really my specialty, but thanks.”

“Ah, shut up,” Greed says, though not in a particularly scolding manner. “Fucking your boss ain’t in the job description, so stop thinking about it like it’s your job. If it were your job, I woulda taken you a long time ago.”

“…How is making you feel good not part of my job?” Dolcetto asks, lifting his head. Greed shrugs, and takes a long drag before answering.

“I’m not great at separating wants and needs,” he says diplomatically. “You’ll have to figure that one out yourself.“

“Hmm…,” Dolcetto rests his head on Greed’s chest again, listening to his heart beat slowly and rhythmically. So which part is the want and which part is the need? Duty, loyalty, that seems like something he needed to do. His job, his role in this world full of things he couldn’t even begin to understand on his own. But what did he want? Greed puts out his cigarette in an ashtray on the other table, and settles down more completely next to Dolcetto. Before finding a comfortable position, he turns on his side and kisses Dolcetto’s forehead. Dolcetto glances up at him, almost surprised, and is struck again by the incomprehensible beauty of looking into his face. Greed lifts Dolcetto’s chin and kisses him on the mouth, deeply and fondly. 

“How’s your head?” Greed says softly after breaking the kiss.

“Like I said, I’m fine.”

“…Atta boy,” he says again, before lying on his back and settling into his nest of pillows. Dolcetto re-establishes a comfortable position to lie by his side, his leg hooked in Greed’s and his arm folded under him. He becomes aware how incredibly tired he is. It has been a long day, longer than seems possible. A weird day for time.

It all still didn’t make very much sense, but there is something very unshakably right about being by his side like this. Who knows if this is just the feeling a dog gets when they curl up at the foot of their master’s bed, or the way a person feels when beside the one they love more than anything in the world. Either way, it was right. Listening to his breathing and feeling his warm skin against his own, Dolcetto feels a deeply comforting sense of belonging. Safe and at ease, he belongs right here, with Greed. Whether this feeling is something he needs as a dog, or just wants as a man, doesn’t really matter. Putting such questions off for another time, Dolcetto drifts off to sleep, the pain in his head gone.


End file.
